


Pack Bonding

by Broken_Clover



Category: Guilty Gear
Genre: Animal Instincts, Gift Fic, Other, Possible Squick, Transformation, depends on your feelings towards licking, mild body horror, the tags make this sound dark but it's not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29831412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broken_Clover/pseuds/Broken_Clover
Summary: Ky is still trying to acclimate to his new transformation. Sol...attemptsto help, in his own special way
Relationships: Sol Badguy & Ky Kiske
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Pack Bonding

**Author's Note:**

> Another special something for the Solkycord! I guess this really is sort of an odd concept, but I'm still rolling with it!

Sol was lazy, but he wasn’t a moron. He knew better than anyone how much of a nightmare Gear cells were, in more ways that one. He’d had the damn things coursing through his system for what felt like forever, but he wasn’t immune to the odd quirks, the sensitive hearing, the soreness of his muscles as the all but ripped apart and reformed in the process of shifting forms, the days when his body simply decided to be a paranoid ball of fried nerves right from the get-go because it regarded every minute display of hostility as something that needed to be violently rebuffed until the offender was off of what he considered his ‘territory.’ Even now, he struggled to perceive himself as something truly ‘human,’ not due to his past but simply because being a Gear brought about so many strange, animalistic behaviors that it reminded him of how much he fundamentally differed as a being.

Dizzy seemed to take it well. For her strange wings and tail, she mirrored humans in more ways than he did. He could still spot those rare twitches, the strange looks in her eye as she realized her unusual territoriality or instinct to raise her tail as an intimidation display were things she subconsciously desired but were very bizarre to do around normal people. Sol was never sure if she had an excellent mask or if she’d simply never realized how much her physical needs differed from humans, from even her own- alright, well, how she _had_ differed from her own husband.

It was peculiar to witness a conversion in real-time, he had to wonder how exactly Ky’s gradual shift compared to his own. He was mostly too busy writhing in pain and running for his life at the time to write down every symptom and change. It was difficult to tell if it was the lingering scientist in him that was so intrigued, or the natural instinct telling him that Ky was slowly becoming something he recognized as familiar, something like him, when he was so used to it feeling different. Sol didn’t consider himself an especially curious man, but he was finding himself fixated.

But, and he never though he’d think so frankly, Ky was handling this _miles_ better than he had.

Very rarely did he get the impression Ky hadn’t long accepted what was happening. Maybe after years and years of nonsense being heaped on him, he just took it at face value. He just went along with it. And for the rare times where he seemed out of his element, he consulted the experts. As soon as he’d realized that actual, tangible changes were happening to him, Ky had sought him out for help and advice. At first, it had been broad questions.

“How will this change me?”

“Will I still be able to hold this form?”

“What will it do in regards to my physical needs?”

It felt sort of like explaining puberty to middle schoolers. Sol didn’t hold any punches, but Ky didn’t want him to. He expressed very little in response to the answers he was given, maybe just a lighthearted quip at most.

But, the longer it went on, and the more changes he saw, Ky’s questions grew more specific.

“Is everything always so...loud? Something about the communicator static just makes me squirm.”

“I’ve been craving raw fish for _days,_ is that normal?”

“Is there a reason why I get so on-edge when someone sits next to me on the couch?”

And still, Sol gave him answers. There were some things he just didn’t know for sure, as far as he was aware their cells were similar, but there may have been some variations. Ky learned, and he learned as he studied, whether it be through the questions, watching him go about his day, or during their training.

Sparring seemed to be one of Ky’s go-to activities when it came to clearing his head. He liked keeping himself in shape and light on his feet, but Sol could tell part of it was to burn away the excess energy that was gradually accumulating. Ky was like a cat, if he didn’t exhaust himself across the day, he’d inevitably burst into some sporadic task to wear himself out manually. Sol was pretty much used to being roped into the job of running him ragged. That was basically their relationship already, so he supposed he couldn’t mind all that much.

It seemed wrong to call it ‘playfighting,’ but he couldn’t think of a better (or more dignified) word. Sol would never go easy on him, but there was a lot less incentive to win. Because Sol technically always ‘won,’ since Ky just kept going over and over until he wore himself out. It was something baby Gears did, wrestling each other to get a handle on what they were capable of and how much energy they had. Sol chose not to say that aloud, only guessing how Ky would take offense to the idea. One of the unforeseen side effects of converting as an adult was that a lot of his new behaviors were the sorts of things Gears would do when they were born, learning their own limits and trying not to destroy everything. Ky did them well, obviously, or at least the latter, but his behavior was almost adorably innocent, if not also embarrassingly incompetent. Not like Sol could tease him for it, he’d basically been the same. 

There was a sliver of brutality in Ky’s fighting that he had noticed as of late; Sol wasn’t sure if it was genuine from the excess energy or a placebo from witnessing Sol’s style for a good two decades and thinking that was how he had to do it. Sol could parry it just fine with how Ky was still trying to restrain himself, but the lack of seriousness their sparring had made it easier to get distracted by his own thoughts. Ky didn’t seem to notice.

Funny enough, it reminded him a lot of raising Sin, too. There had always been clear similarities between the father and son (despite Sin’s vehement objections) but genuinely, training Ky felt similar to teaching Sin how to control himself. Ky clearly had more patience and self-restraint, but the resemblance was still uncanny. They were all the same, those Kiske brats. Although, Sol was related to them, so by some extension, did it retroactively make it partly his fault…?

He was finally pulled out of his own head by a low groan and a thud. Ky was in a pile on the ground, curled up on himself with his sword abandoned.

“Ky?” Sol asked, with only a tinge of concern. “Stub your toe?”

“Nghhh-” Anything the man was going to say instead came out as a pained hiss.

“That a yes? You don’t gotta-” His petty teasing dropped off as he sensed a shift in the air. Sol wasn’t an expert, but something about Ky was sending out distress signals in waves. He sheathed his sword immediately, and got to work hauling his sparring partner up off the ground. “Alright, boy-scout, that’s enough for today.”

Apparently those signals had been involuntary, as Ky attempted to fight off his grasp.

“No, I can still fight- !”

“Yeah, y’could, but you’re not gonna.” Sol hauled him over to the bench. They’d set it up by the field in the first place as a spot to sit after fights, but Sol wasn’t used to dragging him over. Ky’s attempts to stay balanced on the log were hampered as he twitched, with one hand busy covering half of his face. Sol analyzed him for a moment, before sighing. “Gear stuff?”

Though he looked mortified, the man gave a ghost of a nod. Then, in a timid little voice, he asked “Is it...supposed to hurt?”

Sol gave a dour laugh in response. “It’s supposed to be _agony.”_ Genuinely, the first few _years_ had been a stream of physical agony until he’d become numb to it, and Sol was impressed just by the concept that the pain hadn’t knocked Ky out completely on a regular basis. He was a sturdy thing, that was for sure.

Any amusement he could have gotten out of it was brushed away with another hard flinch, and Ky nearly digging nails into his own face. “Hey, come on. Let me see.”

Reluctantly, he complied, gripping the leg of his pants to keep it from flying back up to the spot.

It was rare that Ky was willing to lower his guards and let the extent of his transformation show itself. It only seemed to come about when he was absolutely exhausted, and lacking enough energy to try and restrain it or mask his appearance. Sol was already well accustomed to shifting skins, but Ky was clearly not. The shift wasn’t smooth or seamless; rather, it looked more like patches burning and sloughing off like desquamated skin to reveal what was underneath. Ky didn’t have scales like he and Dizzy- or perhaps he simply didn’t know how to grow them yet- and instead, there was something inky-black and leathery, perfectly smooth aside from the electric-blue veins that ran through it. They almost looked like cracks, like the darkness was hiding something further below.

“Jeez…” Sol’s fingers ghosted along the uneven edges of the black patch. “It’s gotten bigger since last time, huh? Still just the face?”

“I think I’ve started getting it down my arm, too.” Ky rolled up a sleeve, revealing similar darkness spidering down his shoulder. “I’ve been doing those stretches like you told me to, the- the ones that are supposed to keep my joints from locking up, but no matter what I do, I still feel so sore afterwards…”

The man nodded. “Yeah, that’s just one big pain in the ass. That’s just something you’ll have to get used to. There’ll be bad days sometimes, no matter what you do to try and keep yourself at 100%.”

“But I _can't,”_ he objected, “I’m a public official, I can’t just drop out on random days because I-”

“Ky,” Sol cut him off, “there’s just some things you can’t. Trust me, everything you’re thinking about doing to try and fight it off? I’ve tried it myself, and it barely ever works. It’s a shitty truth, but you’re just gonna run your ass ragged if you don’t get it through your thick fuckin’ skull. A lot of this is just gonna be you learning to get used to the pain, and it’s gonna take a while. A _long_ while.”

Ky simply looked down at the dirt, crestfallen. But Sol could tell the patch still bothered him from how his arm kept twitching, and how his red eye squinched shut.

As much as he didn’t want to care, his instincts simply wouldn’t let him. Gears, for the most part, were pack-oriented, and packmates cared for each other. “Alright, what about it’s bothering you?”

“I’m not sure if my face is just sensitive or what, but sometimes it just feels like a giant open wound. This is still skin, isn’t it? I don’t know why I feel like it should be bleeding.”

Sol reached out again to nearly graze the spot as Ky flinched away. “Hnnh. Didn’t shock me, so it’s not a power overflow. To be fair, your face did basically just split open and then repair itself in seconds.”

“Well, that’s a pleasant mental image.” Ky replied sourly. 

“Hey, at least you don’t have your skin burning out from under itself.”

“At least I don’t…” He parroted, then took on a look of disgusted horror. “Really? Was it really like that for you?”

Sol shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah. Fun fact, burning hair fuckin’ _stinks,_ and it’s about twice as bad when it’s your own.”

Ky’s face wrinkled, but that only made his current situation worse as it stretched out the tender skin. He gasped in pain again, doubling over.

“Shit, Ky, I-”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” He hissed back, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than anything else.

“Yeah, clearly.” Sol sighed. “Here, lemme help.”

“...Huh?” Ky sat back up, only to find his rival leaning across the bench, tongue sticking out.

He recoiled in disgust. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Helping you.”

“By spitting on me?”

Sol rolled his eyes. “Y’know how humans have a kind of painkiller in their spit? Gears basically have it weaponized. If I lick it, it’ll hurt less.”

It did nothing for the look he was getting. “I’m not sure if I believe that, but still, I am not letting you lick me.”

“Look, it’s either get spit on you for ten seconds or feel like your face is peeling off for the rest of the day. Your call.”

With a miserable little groan, Ky scooted his chair closer. “Just don’t make it weirder than it needs to be.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

To be fair, Ky didn’t know how a situation like the one he was in could be made more or less awkward, but the feeling of something uncomfortably warm and wet on his cheek definitely felt like it belonged on the former end.

“Eurgh! No, no, I _cannot_ do this.” Ky pulled away again, just barely managing to not electrocute Sol on instinct. “That was disgusting!”

“Yeah, but d’ya feel any better?”

“I…” He trailed off, grazing the spot. Sure enough, he could feel the fizzling pain growing numb as seconds passed. “I...how did you…?”

Sol wore a smug little grin. “Told ya. Now are you gonna let me finish before you throw another hissy fit?”

The second time around, it felt like more of a compelling argument. Ky was still horribly embarrassed, but he had fewer reservations in scooting back over. Sol was happy to oblige, dragging a serpentine tongue across his cheek, bringing the feeling of warmth and numbness back. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend it was like rinsing his face in the sink.

Yeah, that worked. It was just rinsing his face, nothing weird about that. Nothing to freak out about. Just something completely normal that everyone did-

“Ky?”

The man in question jerked out of the faint calm he’d managed, falling forward off his chair and hitting the dirt. To his dismay, when he looked up at the voice, it was exactly who he was expecting. His wife looked over him, wearing an expression that was hard to read, but probably didn’t involve the concept of finding her husband being spit on. This was _mortifying._

Ky flushed bright red. “D-Dizzy! I swear, this isn’t-”

Despite his embarrassment, her face lit up, and she laughed a cheerful laugh. “Oh! I was wondering if that was going to be a habit. I know it’s weird the first couple of times, but you really learn to love it! I sure do. Social grooming is a lot of fun!”

The man slowly looked between his wife and his rival. Neither could stifle their own raucous laughter at his slack-jawed confusion.

“See, boy-scout?” Sol managed between wheezes. “Aren’t you glad you’re surrounded by the experts?”


End file.
